


You Do Better

by PenguinofProse



Series: Fix-it fics for S7 [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon compliant MCD, Clarke tries to do better, Clarke tries to heal, Grief, I hate that that tag is true now, Making peace, caution: angst ahead, weeps, weirdly optimistic considering the circumstances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26584153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenguinofProse/pseuds/PenguinofProse
Summary: What's going on in Clarke's head after 7.13? Can she ever make peace with what she has done?
Series: Fix-it fics for S7 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927285
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	You Do Better

**Author's Note:**

> This is not really a fix-it for 7.13, but a fic set in the aftermath as Clarke tries to process what she's done and make better choices. This is tricky because 7.13 and 7.14 Clarke seemed so out of character, but I've chosen to take it as she's in a really bad place with her trauma catching up with her. I wrote it straight after the episode to try to process my own grief and anger at the show but have been sitting on it all this time because I'm aware it's not my most polished work!
> 
> tl;dr This is not a happy one. If you want to read it, at least we can all be sad together.

What do you do after killing your best friend? The best friend who may also have been the love of your life, if ever you had a moment's peace to work it out? What do you do, when you've just watched yourself pull the trigger, watched the bullet tear through his chest?

When you've watched his big heart bleed out all over the floor?

Clarke doesn't know.

She didn't even get the book. That's the stupidest thing of all, she thinks, as she runs through the anomaly. She didn't even get the damn book after all that.

A book. It seems like such a ridiculous reason to have pulled that trigger. But it's not just a book, of course – it's Madi's life. Left behind in Sanctum, with a guard who just watched her go on a killing spree.

Clarke knows she has made some phenomenally poor choices in her life to date, but this one tops them all.

Already she's thinking of ways out of all this like a crazy person. If she got Bellamy to Bardo in time, could she save him? What about using one of the mind drives to resurrect him?

Yeah, she understands why Gabriel started resurrecting people, now.

She knows she cannot save Bellamy. She knows it's not logical, and logic is supposed to be her strength. But she doesn't feel like she has any strength at all, right now. She doesn't feel like she has much of anything – she's fast losing her grip on sanity and humanity, as that bullet wound proves so conclusively.

She's fallen behind the others. Maybe that's for the best. It gives her some privacy to tremble and wait for the shock to pass and reality to kick in.

She can't believe she just did that.

The weirdest thing is, that it hasn't quite hit home yet. It doesn't feel like she shot _Bellamy_. She feels like Bellamy really did die on Etherea, that the man who came home was not the man she loved. He was just some stranger wearing Bellamy's face.

But she still can't believe she pulled the trigger.

She tries to keep her mind on the dangers before her, but she's drawn into remembering events long behind her, quite against her wishes. She remembers the last time she held him at gunpoint, back in that bunker, a world and a Praimfaya away. She couldn't shoot him then, because she couldn't kill another person she loved.

Now she realises that killing people she loves is all she's good for.

…...

They're on Earth. It takes her a while to get her head around it, but it's infinitely easier to believe than the idea that she actually shot Bellamy.

He can't be dead, right? He'll be there to hug her when she gets home.

What do you do, when you're craving hugs from a dead man? From a man who's dead at your hand?

Clarke doesn't know that, either. She adds it to her list. The list of things she doesn't know is getting very long indeed, now.

"Everything OK?" Raven asks, frowning.

"Fine." Clarke answers.

That's the first word she's spoken since she killed Bellamy. She thinks probably it's a word she'll never say again, suspects it will be tainted in her mind forever, now.

Madi hugs her a lot, in those first few minutes. Evidently she can tell that something is very wrong. But no one else asks difficult questions, or offers hugs.

Yeah, she really does want a Bellamy hug.

She pushes down her grief and starts negotiating with Cadogan, because inhumanity and repressing her emotions are basically her only useful skills, at this point.

…...

The plan Clarke forms is a simple one, thank goodness – she's hardly in any state to produce anything more complex right now.

How long does it take to start thinking straight again, after shooting probably-the-love-of-your-life?

Clarke doesn't know that, either.

The plan is that she will pretend that she still has memories of the flame in her head. Madi will tell her everything she can remember, and Clarke will present the memories as her own. They're on Earth, here, not Bardo, so Cadogan and his men do not have access to MCAP. It therefore seems unlikely that they will realise the lie, as long as Clarke plays her part well.

The only obstacle is Cadogan's suspicion.

"So you're cooperating now?" He asks, eyes narrowed just a little.

"Yes." Clarke keeps it brief – she's not doing too well with talking, just now.

"Do you mind if I ask why?"

"I... spoke with Bellamy. Before we left."

It's not exactly the truth. But it's how she keeps everyone safe, how she puts distance between herself and the blood pouring from Bellamy's chest on a cold palace floor. She used to want to stop the last war, she seems to remember. But now she just wants this monstrous man who has ruined her life for approximately the thousandth time to get lost and go back to Bardo. She wants to keep Madi safe, and get Cadogan out of here as quickly as possible.

When he's gone, she can lose her mind in peace.

Cadogan seems reassured, anyway. He gets on with believing her sudden willingness to cooperate. He listens to all she says, writes it down, goes on his way back to Bardo. He leaves Clarke and her friends to live on Earth, or to hop back to Sanctum if they wish.

Clarke doesn't breathe a sigh of relief, though. She can't breathe, because when Bellamy died he took her hope away with him.

…...

She knows she needs to tell her friends what she's done.

How do you tell everyone you care about that you killed someone you loved? Someone they loved, too – even their brother?

Clarke doesn't know. And that's unfortunate, because she's in the midst of telling them right now, right this very heartbeat.

"Bellamy's dead." She says, toneless, within moments of Cadogan's departure.

There's a moment of silence.

Raven breaks it first. "Clarke -"

"He's dead. He got shot. I'm so sorry, Octavia."

And then she walks off into the forest – the Earth forest, fresh and green and dangerous. The forest where she first fell in love with him, a lifetime ago.

…...

Raven closes down the anomaly stone. She doesn't make a big deal of it – she just says it's safer that way. She nips back through, fetches anyone from Sanctum who wants to join them – a few Wonkru, mostly the children of Gabriel. And then she shuts the link.

She doesn't tell Clarke that it's because she knows she killed Bellamy. But it must be obvious, Clarke fears. She can feel it in every bone of her body, in the way she shuffles sadly through life. So her friends must be able to see it too, she figures.

How long does it take to get over killing the love of your life?

Clarke doesn't know that, either. She could swear she used to know a lot more things that were useful, once upon a time. Back before she lost her heart and with it her mind.

…...

 _You're not gonna shoot me, Clarke_.

She still has nightmares about that.

When do you stop having nightmares about a thing like this?

Clarke doesn't know. Of course she doesn't.

…...

She starts growing tomatoes. It's Echo's idea. Clarke thinks that's stupid, in as much as she thinks anything much at all these days. She's trying not to think, as a general rule. Thinking hurts – much better to be numb.

Echo joins her when she's farming. Clarke never invites her, but she's always there. That's just the way it is.

"I'm glad it was you." Echo whispers, today.

Clarke jumps in shock. "What do you mean?" She asks, although she fears she knows the answer all too well.

"I'm glad you were the one who pulled the trigger. I – I understand why you did it, Clarke. He was a danger to Madi, to us. But if he had to die – at least there was someone he loved there with him at the end."

No. No, that's not how this works. That's a sentiment which would work if he was shot by _someone else_ , if Clarke was there to hold him tight and whisper words of comfort and maybe press a careful kiss to his cheek.

But she doesn't feel that it works so well, when she's the one who shot him.

She cries. She lets loose in huge heaving sobs for the first time. It's not that she hasn't shed tears before now, but this is the first time she allows herself to break. This is the first time she allows the grief to tear great gaping holes in the numbness.

Echo wraps an arm around her shoulders, holds her tight while she weeps.

Is it normal for your true love's ex-girlfriend to comfort you while you break down over shooting him?

Clarke neither knows nor cares. She just weeps.

And by the time she surfaces from her horrific crying fit, she finds that Octavia is sitting on her other side, too, her hand on Clarke's knee and her own cheeks streaked with tears.

…...

Clarke doesn't build the school herself. She can't bear to. Miller and Murphy do the bulk of the work, but Clarke organises the builders and approves the plans.

She chooses to name it after Bellamy. Of course she does. And the very first lesson for each and every child is the story of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, and a relationship ripped apart over sacrificing a treasured child in the name of war.

…...

It's a long time before Clarke goes to see Jackson. Or rather, it feels a long time. She's not so good at keeping track of time, since she stopped sleeping.

"I want to help." She announces.

He frowns. "Are you sure you're ready?"

She's never been ready for anything this life has thrown at her. She wasn't ready to come to Earth, wasn't ready to lose Lexa. And she sure as hell wasn't ready to kill Bellamy.

"I want to help." She repeats. "I want to finish my apprenticeship properly. I got put in solitary before I covered major trauma."

Irony of ironies. She's dealt with nothing but major trauma since the dropship. She's stitched more substantial wounds than most career medics.

But if she'd finished her apprenticeship, could she have saved Bellamy?

Is it normal to still be bargaining with yourself, this long after killing your soulmate?

Clarke doesn't know. But maybe if she finishes her medical apprenticeship at long last, she has some hope of finding out.

…...

There's not a lot of major trauma to deal with, since they've come to Earth. Not a lot in the way of blood and guts, anyway.

There's Octavia hating herself, Echo hating everyone on her bad days. There's Clarke who's too tired to remember what hatred even is any more.

There's Madi, that one bright ray of sunshine. At least she's safe.

Clarke enjoys her apprenticeship, in as much as she enjoys anything these days. There's an innocence to learning how to save lives, rather than going around commanding death. She births a few babies, stitches up a few minor wounds.

Occasionally, she sleeps. That's progress.

…...

It's Clarke's idea to have a council again, but it's an idea that has widespread support. She stands for a place on it, because she can't not do so. It's the only way she can see of honouring her mother and Lexa and Bellamy and all the other leaders she has loved and let down and lost.

Indra is their leader. Some people call her the Chancellor, and some call her the Commander.

Clarke calls her Indra. If there's one thing she's learnt, since she found herself in lockup all those years ago, it's that leaders are only human.

…...

What do you do after killing your best friend? The best friend who was also the love of your life, even though you worked it out too late? What do you do, when you once watched yourself pull the trigger, watched the bullet tear through his chest?

When you've watched his big heart bleed out all over the floor?

You don't sleep a lot. This much Clarke knows.

But she knows other things, too. You build a school, you name it after him. You teach about heroes and villains, right and wrong, in his honour. You grow tomatoes, raise your daughter, preside over peace.

You finish learning how to save lives, instead of taking them.

And most of all? You hold onto hope that maybe – just maybe, if you're incredibly lucky – you might meet again on the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
